


Level of Concern

by Midnight_Run



Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Literal Sleeping Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:27:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29065065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midnight_Run/pseuds/Midnight_Run
Summary: A casual meeting and a night on the road.
Relationships: Yuri Lowell/Duke Pantarei
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Level of Concern

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pirotess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirotess/gifts).



Even though a crew of mages out of Aspio had cleared the old blastia parts out of the road and it was a bustling trade route once more, Yuri had never managed to kick the habit of veering off the path and making the long trek through the wilds of Ehmead Hill. Every time his travels took him through there, he always stepped off the path in the same place, letting those well-worn animal trails lead him along the coastline and over fallen trees and through overgrown brush. When Karol or one of the others were with him, it was easy enough to excuse it away as just wanting to clear out the worst of the seasonal infestations of chirpees or beetles before they overran the main road. It was even true.

He didn’t usually mention that taking that little detour also gave him a chance to pay his respects to the worn grave on the coast.

He hadn’t known Elucifer, but he knew enough to know that they all owed Duke's old friend a whole hell of a lot. Paying his respects when he was in the area, always seemed the least he could do, considering.  
  
So he swept the area near the worn down marker free of leaves and branches and settled down beside it to offer a silent thanks and an apology. If he were the kind of guy who was any good at small talk, he might have have told the Elucifer bits and pieces about how the world was changing, about how things were going in the world without blastia, but he’d never been the type to fill good silence with nervous chatter, so he never saw a reason to disturb the peace of the area unnecessarily. 

It was a nice sort of place, quiet aside from the wind in the trees and roar and crash of the ocean waves against the cliff face below his feet. 

He could see, he thought, why Duke had chosen it.

He supposed he’d always known this habit would take him into Duke's, but it still came as a surprise when he heard the sound of steel clearing a scabbard a scant moment before the cool of it came to rest against the side of his throat.

"Hey Duke," he commented, not turning to look at him. "Been a while."

He’d seen Duke a handful of times since that final battle, but all of those meetings had been just like all the times they'd met over the course of their respective journeys; brief, fleeting chance encounters that had left him with more questions than answers and had always ended sooner than he’d have liked.

Estelle had told him once that she thought Duke was like a summer storm, sudden and usually pleasant, but always unexpected. He had thought that description was pretty good and he hadn't been all that surprised that it was definitely something that had remained true even after they had defeated the Adephagos.

The big difference, he supposed, when he allowed himself to dwell on those appearances in the weeks and sometimes seasons between one and the next, was that it no longer felt like he was the one stumbling into Duke’s path. In those rare moments when Duke appeared out of nowhere to fall into step beside him, or put a blade to his throat, it was clear that he’d sought him out.

Which probably would have been a nice change of pace if it hadn't also been as unnerving as _hell_.

It wasn't that he was afraid of Duke, he wasn't, hadn’t been even during the last time they’d met on the battlefield when Duke had become something more than merely mortal before he’d turned around and given the last of that power to help them. He also wasn’t stupid. It had been so perfectly obviously that, if he’d wanted to, Duke could have smashed the lot of them into paste and smeared them across the stone floors without even breaking a sweat.

Even if they weren’t enemies, he still wasn’t foolish enough to take Duke’s continued good grace for granted. 

The blade withdrew and he let out a breath he didn't particularly wish to admit he'd been holding. He finally chanced a glance back and found Duke giving him a considering look before he nodded thoughtfully, “Yes, I suppose that is true, Yuri Lowell.”

And that, that right there, was the other reason Duke’s sudden, inexplicable appearances set him on edge. 

“You know,” he replied, raising an eyebrow. “You could just call me Yuri.”

”Could I.”

Those words from someone else might have sounded curious. From Duke, they didn’t even sound like a question. If anything they sounded vaguely offended, as if the mere suggestion of such informality was absurd.

“Sure, why not?”

Duke hummed, a gruff response that was more typical of their earliest meetings when Duke had seemed by turns surprised and annoyed by their presence and opinions. On the horizon he could see dark clouds making steady threatening progress towards the shore.   
  


“Elucifer used to say I was uncommonly resistant to change for one so short-lived.”

Yuri chuckled, folding his arms behind his head and laying back against the patchy grass so he could grin up at Duke more easily, “Given how long it took you to decide to help us out, I’d say Elucifer knew you pretty well.”

Duke hummed again before resting his sword against the tree and taking a seat beside him with meticulous care. He sat like he stood, his posture painfully perfect in a way Yuri couldn’t have managed if he spent the rest of his life practicing at it.

“Yes, he did indeed. He would have liked you very much, Yuri Lowell.”

”I’ll take that as a compliment.”

”It was meant as one.”

Silence stretched out between them, soft and comfortable as the clouds drifted by overhead, growing slowly darker and heavier as the afternoon wore into night.

There were a lot of differences between the world that had been and the world that was and probably the most dramatic and least surprising had been the weather.

Without the constant push and pull of blastia to tug the aer out of shape, the world was becoming something wilder than it had been. He'd mentioned it to Rita once and instantly regreated it after he'd been treated to an unnecessarily long and detailed explanation for it that involved a lot more words and hand gestures than should be necessary to explain anything. He'd given up on listening about halfway through, but he'd caught enough of it to understand that weather would be really freaking weird for the next couple decades or so while nature adjusted to all the sudden changes.

He swung his legs back onto the cliff and pushed to his feet, "We should probably get going unless you want to get caught out in the storm."

"You always seemed the sort to enjoy being caught in a storm," Duke commented blandly as he also stood, falling into step beside him. 

"Sure," Yuri offered gamily. "As long as it's the right kind of storm."  
  
They walked in silence for a time, down the path, taking care of the few beetles that were unlucky or misguided enough to cross their path. By the time they’d reached the main path and slipped out into the field beyond where night was imminent and the rising breeze and scent of sea air brought with them a first lazy drops of rain.

They barely made it a dozen steps down the path towards Halure when lightning spiked across the sky, bringing with it a sudden peel of thunder and turning a smattering of rain into a fine drizzle.

If they hurried, they might be able to make Aspio or Halure before the storm really got going, but the Wandering Traveler was always closer to Ehmead Hill around this time of year. 

Sure enough, a quick glance around found the wagon’s familiar shape dark against the horizon and set off towards it at a jog, only vaguely surprised when Duke fell into step beside him. 

"Hey Yuri," the innkeeper called, waving her hand over her head as he approached. Behind her, he could see her brother pulling down the weather shielding Rita had built for them a few seasons back when she'd realized they just pitched a makeshift tent outside when they had guests and foul weather made bedding down by the campfire an impossibility. He hadn't seen the point in telling Rita that they'd just kept right on doing it and usually made use of their new siding to make the underside of the wagon pleasant enough to be used for guests. "Underside is already taken, but we have space in the back of the wagon if you and your friend can pay! Better hurry! It looks like this is gonna be a bad one."

"Yeah, we l’ll take it," he called back, jogging up the path with the coin already in hand. Rich pulled open the canvas at the wagon, gesturing impatiently for them to hurry inside. He'd just handed his coin over when the sky opened up and flung his bedroll into the wagon when the light drizzle became a downpour.

He felt Duke's hand land against the small of his back, a light touch with the force of twenty years of battle-tempered strength, that shoved him unceremoniously into the wagon. It was only his own hard won skill that saved him from being shoved face first into a bag of grain as he twisted pulled himself up to allow room for Duke to slide in gracefully behind him. Duke folded his legs neatly beneath him before pulling the canvas closed against the pelting rain.

The wagon was just as tight a fit as he remembered though he’d only rarely taken a turn in it during his time traveling with Estelle and the others. He had always preferred sleeping out by the campfire, for as tough as they were, Rita and Estelle had never slept well during the nights they’d had to rough it in tents and cottages so it had seemed only fair.

Since he’d begun traveling alone more often than not, dividing his time between a half-dozen cities, he’d spent more time there, appreciating the break from the hefty price of town inns.

The firm, scratchy bedding and the quiet conversation of the siblings who owned the wagon had become a familiar and welcome distraction from the silence of the road and the churn of his thoughts. He spent so much time there that the siblings sometimes joked he was keeping them in business, which probably would have been funnier if he wasn’t so sure it was true. So much so that he usually made a point of tucking some extra gald into the blankets for them to find after he left. 

The interior of the wagon was dark save for a single dim lantern hung near the front, casting long shadows across the walls as rain beat down against the canvas cover, the wind ruffled the edges, whistling through the uneven seams to bring a faint chill to the air.

Yuri shivered, pulling his boots off and tucking them into the corner of their half of the wagon, out of the way, before pulling loose his belt and stripping off his shirt to set it aside to dry. His pants were still reasonably dry which was a pleasant surprise. Beside him, Duke had begun to strip out of his clothing as well. 

He’d never seen Duke with the expensive clothing he wore like armor stripped away. Hell, he'd never even seen him without the coat.

Duke's shoulders were broader than they’d appeared and his dark skin was a stark contrast against the pale fall of his hair.

Whatever else he was, there was no denying that Duke was a beautiful man.  
  
The thought was a disconcerting one only because he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Duke being handsome was hardly news. He’d thought he was beautiful the first time he’d seen him standing alone looking out over the field toward Halure.

“I am not accustomed to sharing such close quarters with others,” Duke commented, breaking through his thoughts, expression half-hidden by the shadows.

Yuri raised an eyebrow, “Weren’t you in the army?”

Duke’s lips quirked into something warm and amused, “I was, but it was a long time ago.”

”Don’t worry, it’s just like swinging a sword,” he replied easily, unstrapping his bedroll and shaking it out. It was a little wet, but still perfectly serviceable. 

Thunder shook the wagon, rocking it just a little and the guests who’d taken the space in the front of wagon screamed a little before shushing each other.

Yuri settled back on the damp mattress and patted the empty space beside him, “C’mon, let’s get some rest.”

Duke clicked his tongue, but laid down beside him without further comment. 

It was a tight fit and in the end, he ended up flipping over so he could press his back to Duke’s chest and pull the bedroll over them both.

Time passed in the rise and fall of the howling wind and the subtle creak and moan of the wagon as it shifted beneath them. Eventually the other guests stopped screaming every time the world moved around them.

Beside him, Duke still held himself painfully rigid beside him, his skin cool where it pressed against his back.

“Do you often sleep like this with your companions?” He asked finally, with the air of a drowning man grasping desperately for a rope.

Yuri snorted, remembering all the times on the road and back home when Repede had slept at his back, sharing warmth on cold nights when they hadn’t enough gald to afford space at the inns in the towns they’d passed through. “Sure, plenty of times.”

“I see,” Duke replied, stiffly. “Then this is... something to which you are accustomed.”

”I wouldn’t go that far.”

”Do you believe I’m not a threat to you?”

”Well that’s a weird question to ask the guy you’re spooning with, but sure, I’ll bite. I think if you wanted me dead you’ve had ample time and opportunity to get the job done before now.”

”So you... trust me?”

“Not to kill me for fun in the back of a wagon on a stormy night?” Yuri inquired, a bubble of amusement rising in throat unbidden. “Yeah.”

A hand settled against his side briefly, palm cool and rough with callouses, before sliding down to spread wide across his bare stomach over the largest scar there. “You would do well to be less free with your trust.”

”That your way of telling me I shouldn’t trust you? Because, I gotta say, you’ve saved my life way too many times for me not to feel comfortable untrusting you with it.”

”Only because it served my purposes.”

”Yeah, yeah,” Yuri murmured, the pull of sleep becoming almost irresistible.

”You don’t believe that?”

”Nah, I’m sure you had your reasons,” he yawned, touching sleep clumsy fingers against the back of Duke’s hand where it still rested against his stomach. “You haven’t lied to me yet.”

Duke’s hand slipped from beneath his touch, gracefully sliding around to close fingers around his wrist in a painful grip, strong and unyielding, “Careful.”

A shiver of something that could have been fear trembled up his spine and Yuri leaned back into Duke’s chest a little more heavily, reaching back with his free hand to thread his fingers into Duke’s long damp hair, “I’m plenty careful.”

”You have several near-fatal injuries that make a liar of you, Yuri Lowell.”

”Yeah, that’s probably true,” he yawned. “Good night, Duke.”

”Good night,” Duke murmured, the words almost a whisper as he leaned in close enough to press the shape of it against the back of Yuri’s throat. 

He wondered idly, how long it had been since Duke had last been in the position to bid someone a good night, but the pull of sleep was too strong and before he could figure out how to form the question he was already gone.

Yuri woke hours later to find his fingers tangled in long pale hair and Duke curled around him like a second skin, knees pressed into the back of his own, hand still locked right around his wrist palm and Duke’s pale hair draped all around him like a shroud.

There were, he decided after a moment’s consideration, far worse ways to wake up.


End file.
